[Steven Konecny]

That’s a subtle and shameless plug for a hole-drilling tool! 🙂

[Steven Konecny]

Hey, they’re breaking their own not-so-important rules! Thanks for the clarification Joe. Didn’t mean to make it sound like I was making your fine work look bad.

Sooooo, SketchUp creates it’s own problems, which is nothing new to those of us who have used it for awhile.

That’s a handy FAQ, btw.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

I just noticed something else… not sure if it makes a difference or not, but…

CabWriter moves component entities to the component’s layer, instead of leaving them on layer 0. I went to a SketchUp training a few years ago, and they said one of the cardinal rules of SketchUp was to leave entities of components on layer 0; only the component itself, and sub-components should be put on another layer. And, of course, never leave a component or sub-component on layer 0. Along with that decree, it was emphasized that there are many ways to use SketchUp, and these rules aren’t going to break anything if not followed. So, the lesson learned was, do this so the masses have a standard to follow, but it doesn’t really matter if you do it, or not.

So, steb 1.1 might be: Select Layer 0 for all entities.
After exploding, all the entities of the component will be hi-lighted, so all you need to do is select layer 0 from the entities tray.

It actually doesn’t matter when you do this step. You can do it after you make it a component, too. If you already made it a component, triple-click on the component to open it and select all it’s entities, then select layer 0.

I was thinking this step is necessary based on Joe’s previous comments about CabWriter looking at layers, but again, it might not matter.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Just a quick clarification on step 2.

You shouldn’t use the CabWriter name. You’ll need to give it a name that CabWriter will ignore.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Hi Joe,
I like that Scenes idea. That will come in handy if you’re making assembly diagrams. But there could be a caveat, which I’ll explain further down.

For parts I don’t want CabWriter to handle, I figured out the easy way to “orphan” a part.

1) “Explode” the part – this wipes out everything about that component.
2) “Make Component” – while it’s still hi-lighted, turn it back into a component. The part stays in it’s current position and simply becomes a standard Sketchup component.
3) Put it on a separate layer – probably best to use 1 layer for each different material and thickness.

Note: Any duplicate instances of the CabWriter component still act as CabWriter parts. If you don’t want that, you’ll need to explode each instance.

The downside to this is – those parts won’t get included into Cutlist Plus fx, either. This may, or may not be a problem. I don’t know how many sheets I need until I run a nest routine, anyway, so it’s not that big a deal for me. I do like to use Cutlist Plus for labels, but adding a few special parts to the Cutlist project file is easy.

Since these are no longer CabWriter parts, you’ll be able to import them using whatever CNC software you usually use. If you’re using a Vectric product, it’s as easy as importing vectors, but in this case you select the Sketchup project file and choose which layers you want to import. Simply move the vectors to their matching CabWriter layers. I believe there are currently 4 CabWriter layers. ‘Construction Holes’ and ‘System Holes’, for holes, obviously. ‘Parts – Large’ and ‘Parts – Small’, for outside profile cuts. You’ll need to make new layers for inside profile cuts, pocket cuts, profiled edge cuts, engraving, carving or whatever special thing you’re doing to the part.

I will note; Vectric software (Cut-2D, VCarve Pro, Aspire) can’t differentiate Scenes. So, if you are making an exploded parts diagram in the same project file, you’ll need to be sure to put every single special part in the exploded parts scene on a separate layer. Otherwise it will get duplicated when importing inside Vectric’s software. Depending on how many special parts you have, that may, or may not be a problem.

Another Note. In another post, Joe mentioned you shouldn’t change the axes on CabWriter parts. However, if you’r making a special part and want Vectric to align the grain properly, you really should update the axes of the part. Red is X, Length (or grain direction). Green is Y, Width. Blue is Z, Height/Thickness. You should put the axes origin on the bottom plane of the part if you’re doing the traditional “Z-up” method on your CNC.

Sorry for the long post, but I think this could have a big impact on CNC folks.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Thanks for helping me figure this out. Sounds like v2.0 will take care of most of this stuff.

It does export if I make the box parts into a standard custom part, but until v2.0 it doesn’t cut the dado for the box bottom panel.

It’s no big deal. I can make the parts on a separate layer and import them from VCarve. If I want to nest all the parts in one go, that’s easy, too. You can import the extra stuff after you open one of the CabWriter DXF’s, that way they all get nested and cut at the same time.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Uh-oh… I probably messed up my drawing, then.

[Steven Konecny]

Hi Greg,
You’re right, creating groups of CabWriter components causes several hiccups. I’ll just have to remember to explode everything before I run the documentation.

On the layers bit, I’m talking about parts that CabWriter can’t handle correctly (for now, v2.0 will fix a lot of this). For example, parts that need a pocket cut, or an inside profile cut.

I tried it out several ways, but copying CabWriter parts seems to cause problems; CabWriter wants to own it forever if it created a part, no matter how you try to orphan it. Short of completely redrawing the part, just copying, renaming it, moving it to another layer, and a few other things I tried, all seem to cause an error message. I think what’s needed here is an “Orphan Part” button, where it strips out all CabWriter related information and links. Then I can safely put it on another layer, modify to my heart’s content, and import it using Vectric’s Sketchup import tool. Or, Joe might know an easy way that I didn’t try, or maybe (probably) I didn’t do something right.

Vectric’s importer will let you grab parts on a specific layer, that way you can just get the special parts and it will ignore everything else in the model. It will put those parts on one layer, named exactly as it’s named in Sketchup. If you pick multiple layers to import, then whatever parts were in those layers will import onto same named layers in Vectric. If your importing after already opening a CabWriter DXF, then you’ll have to manually move vectors to the appropriate layers to match up with the rest of the CabWriter parts.

It sounds like a lot of extra work, but it’s not really that big a deal unless you made parts that need a whole bunch of different toolpathing layers. Otherwise, move vectors to the 3 or 4 pre-made CabWriter layers and you’re done.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Hi Greg,
I think I found the answer to this. It is part of CutList Bridge. If you don’t check “Cabinet/Resize Mode” (which I wouldn’t for CNC’ed panels) the “Swap L/W” checkbox remains.

According to Joe’s Cutlist Bridge Documentation:
“Swap L/W – The user can specify in SketchUp any component whose length and width should be swapped. CutList Plus fx assumes the length field specifies the grain direction. However, there are times when the short dimension of a board should be the grain direction. Check Swap L/W to accomplish this.”

I haven’t actually tried it out yet, but I’m assuming Joe is using Cutlist fx’s DXF export functions, which would pick up this setting and rotate the part.

So, I think I found the answer, in the companion software. I’ll give it a try soon and let you know if it works as hoped.

Thanks,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Have you tried renumbering your cabinets and then doing a re-draw of the affected cabs? You could also try using the purge plugin to get rid of any extra unused components, then try redrawing.

[Steven Konecny]

Thanks Joe,
I do have a follow-up question, though.

For the imported cabinet drawer boxes, I redrew the sides so they were exactly 1/2″ thick, and after making them custom CabWriter parts, I assigned them the same milled part info as the 1/2″ back panels (Sheet Good, Maple ply).

However, they will not show up on the CNC DXF export. Is this because they are not a cabinet “Box” type? I know I can export the extra 1/2″ parts and then import them after I open the 1/2″ DXF file CabWriter creates. I was just wondering if there was a way to let CabWriter take care of it all and save a couple of steps.

Thanks,
Steve

[Steven Konecny]

It turns out the bug was me.

I renumbered the the cabinet parts and presto, Comp #’s on every part that was missing one.

It does indeed export to Cutlist, too.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

OK, this is weird, or maybe it’s not…

Just for kicks I tried renumbering the cabinets. That actually fixed all the parts that didn’t have a Comp #, but some lost their material settings. It’s was pretty easy to mass change the materials for all the parts from the same stock, so it seems to be fixed now. Not sure what was going on, but it seems to be a non-issue now.

Sorry for the false alarm.

Steve

[Steven Konecny]

Hmmmm… That didn’t work either.

But I wonder if my file got corrupted somehow. Now no parts are being assigned a Comp #, even part types that were before.

This might be a bug for Joe. I’ll submit this file to him in the Beta section.

[Steven Konecny]

Well, unfortunately, I’m not sure this will work after all. I tried making the parts CabWriter Components, but it doesn’t assign a “Comp #”. Every other part, including other custom parts I’ve made, have a component number assigned after I make it a proper part.

I’m sure it would work if I assigned it as a custom part, I just wanted the layer support.

I’ll give a shot as a drawer front, instead.

Steve

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